


The super soldier serum explained

by PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson



Series: Theories and meta [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Comic Book Science, For Science!, Gen, Heart-Shaped Herb (Marvel), Meta, Science, Super Soldier Serum, explained
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 14:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21447364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson/pseuds/PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson
Summary: I attempt to explain the weirdness of the super soldier serum.
Series: Theories and meta [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546192
Comments: 9
Kudos: 23





	The super soldier serum explained

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! It’s me again with even more science rambling, but this time about the super soldier serum! As you can tell, I spend way too much time thinking about my fandoms, mostly because I have a very logical mind, and when something doesn’t make sense I will turn it over in my mind until it does.
> 
> Also I am making a series of all my meta and theories, so check it out!
> 
> Note: I may love biology, especially DNA and inheritance, but most of this is speculation and reasoning, so if something about this theory is off, please tell me!

So this is my explanation for a few of the weirder aspects of the super soldier serum. Some things that I got confused by was Steve needing the Vita-Rays to become a super soldier, while no other super soldiers had them, and neither Steve or Bucky noticing that Bucky was a super soldier (not thinking that he survived the fall.) I will also be clearing up some misconceptions about the serum and it’s effects that I have seen in fics.

In some fics I have read, the serum is seen as only in the bloodstream, so if it’s filtered out, like with kidney dialysis, or otherwise removed, then the serum can be taken away. And sometimes Steve is even turned back into small!Steve just by removing the serum. The DNA in all of his cells were permanently changed, all of his ailments gone forever, not just hidden under the healing qualities of the serum. The only way that this kind of thing is feasible is magic, time travel, or infinity stone shenanigans.

A common assumption about the serum is that just because it made him grow, they assume that because he’s enhanced, that because he’s perfect genetically, that means that he would be tall and broad. Yeah, for strength it might be perfect, but for speed and stealth, it would be the opposite. So I believe that he was just genetically predisposed to be tall and broad. It’s well known that when people are very sick, or malnourished when they’re young, they won’t grow to their full potential. Steve was a child during the Great Depression, and very sick, so he definitely didn’t get as tall as he could have. All the serum did was take away all of his sicknesses, enhance him to his full genetic potential and farther. One common symptom of believing this is that the serum is mentioned to have “made every part of Steve bigger.”

My theory is that yes, the serum is in the bloodstream, but it’s also in the cells as well. The problem is how it would get into the cells. I think that it would change the DNA in a few cells, and then, like any mutation, it would replicate and spread. The thing is, the serum enhanced healing speed, and therefore cell replication speed. I assume that the cells wouldn’t replicate unless needed, otherwise there would be a lot of cancer, (aka uncontrolled cell replication.) That would mean that any time a cell would die, the super serumed cell would replace it faster than the “normal” cells, and spread that way. 

This would explain how Bucky might not notice being a super soldier, it would happen gradually, cell by cell. I once read something that said that it takes seven years to replace every cell in your body. I think it would take a much shorter time for Bucky, given the speedy cell replication of the serum, and the amount of injuries he probably got as a soldier. It’s impossible to tell how tall your growing until you look back, so Bucky would only realize that something is off after he survives the fall, and looking back, he notices that he has been healing steadily faster every time.

You may be thinking about Steve, and how his transformation only took a few minutes at most, but I have an explanation for that. The main difference is the Vita-Rays, so how does it change the results so much? One quality of radiation is that it kills cells, so that would kill off non-serumed cells, which would quickly be replaced by serumed-cells. Maybe the vita rays would also speed up the serums healing speed, otherwise he wouldn’t heal fast enough to be alive at the end of the process. He may heal fast, but not “completely regenerates himself in a few minutes” fast. The Vita-Rays would make it a lot more painful, but a lot faster. With a war on, I doubt that the army (who would be funding and supporting Erskine,) would be very concerned with the process being less painful if it was slower. Also with Steve’s multiple major medical disorders, and generally poor health, he might die before the transformation finished. 

When the Red Skull took the serum, it wasn’t ready, so that might explain some of the weirdness of him. He also didn’t have the Vita-Rays, but he transformed quickly, so its possible that the Vita-Rays were somehow in the serum? Then maybe Erskine took the Vita-Rays out of the serum to stabilize it for Steve? It isn’t the most logical, but it’s the best explanation I could think of that incorporates all the information.

The other Winter Soldiers didn’t have Vita-Rays to speed up their transformation, so I think that they might have had a slow transformation. They were also pitted against Bucky to train, possibly testing when they were done getting stronger.

Bruce Banner however, used gamma rays instead of Vita-Rays. It’s well known that gamma rays cause mutations in DNA, so the amount of gamma rays he used would easily mutate the serumed-cells into something different but similar, aka The Hulk instead of just an enhanced human.

Something else that doesn’t make much sense is how Erskine made the serum. It was only in 1944 that it was discovered that DNA is the method of inheritance, not proteins like it was thought before. They hadn’t even discovered the shape of DNA yet! How could he come up with a serum that changed people’s DNA for the better? I think that somehow Erskine got ahold of a heart-shaped herb from Wakanda. It causes the same effects, strength, speed, enhanced reflexes, etc. I doubt that Erskine would have stolen it, but maybe he got a weird herb sample from somebody or something and began experimenting with it. It’s also mentioned that the heart-shaped herb was a result of the meteor that brought vibranium to earth, and the radiation that it caused. I’m not saying that only super soldiers can use vibranium things like shields, but... the only people I’ve seen using the shield effectively are Steve and Bucky, so...

The serum is another thing that Marvel didn’t think through all that much, but it is a bit more consistent then Steve’s shield, so it could be worse. There is a lot that isn’t explained, is contradictory, is a stretch, or just doesn’t make much sense, but given that it comes from comics, and comic book science is a tag in itself, they did pretty good in adapting it.

**Author's Note:**

> As usual if you have questions, constructive criticism, ideas, or tags I forgot, please comment!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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